The Questioning Christian

Suggested reading: Bibles and other religion books

A reader sent me an email this week, excerpted below:

... Today, I happily stumbled upon your blog via a web search regarding the possibility of being Christian while not believing in the divinity of Jesus. I have spent the past hour or so looking over your previous posts, and I am finding them most helpful in my current faith journey.

I particularly value your definition of faith as: (i) accepting that a Creator exists and (ii) trusting that, in the end, all will be well. This resonates deeply with me.

... I realize you have not posted much lately, but I hope you can assist me. Could you please recommend: 1) books that reflect your views on Christianity and faith, and 2) a good English translation of the Bible?

(Extra paragraphing added.)

 

Many thanks to that reader, whose email inspired me to put together the following lists.

 

(The links below are not "affiliate" links, incidentally.)

 

Bible

I normally quote from the New International Version, for two reasons: (1) It's fairly readable, and (2) it's a favorite of evangelicals and conservatives --- if I quoted from a more-"liberal" translation, that might give those folks an excuse to discount or ignore the point I'm trying to make. 

 

My own personal favorite Bible is the New Revised Standard Version, especially the HarperCollins Study Bible, which has lots of footnotes and annotations. 

 

I've found useful the NKJV Greek-English Interlinear New Testament. ("NKJV" stands for New King James Version.)

Books

The following list of books is in no particular order, from scanning across my bookshelves:

• Gregg Easterbrook, Beside Still Waters -- a journalist's critical study of the Bible while his wife was a diplomat stationed in Pakistan.
• Nevada Barr, Seeking Enlightenment Hat by Hat -- a memoir of the author's personal journey to faith; see this short excerpt.
• Geza Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew -- Vermes was born a Hungarian Jew, baptized Catholic at age seven, became a priest, but later returned to Judaism; a professor at Oxford.
• Geza Vermes, The Authentic Gospel of Jesus
• Geza Vermes, The Changing Faces of Jesus
• Richard Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God -- a historical examination of the christological battle between Athanasius and Arius that led to the adoption (and imposition) of the Nicene Creed.
• Bart Ehrman - Misquoting Jesus -- Ehrman, an academic, was an enthusiastic evangelical in his youth but his study of original texts led him away from faith.
• James R. Adams, So You Think You're Not Religious? A Thinking Person's Guide to the Church -- Adams was an Episcopal priest in Washington D.C.
• James R. Adams, From Literal to Literary: The Essential Reference Book for Biblical Metaphors -- I just ordered it and haven't read it.  In looking up Adams, I saw that he died in 2011, and his obituary in the Washington Post mentioned it.
• Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity -- this is an accessible historical treatment by a sociologist from that professional perspective.

I've omitted some writers whose works I found valuable but that I regard as less accessible, such as:

• John Dominic Crossan, a scholar and former Catholic priest
• Paula Frederiksen, a Boston University professor
• John Polkinghorne, a renowned Cambridge University particle physicist turned Anglican priest, but some of whose science-based arguments I find less than convincing
• A. N. Wilson
• Paul Johnson

I've also omitted writers whom I regard as assuming too many facts not in evidence or being insufficiently skeptical, such as N.T. Wright (conservative) and Marcus Borg (liberal).

 

Finally, I've omitted various translations of primary sources.

 

 

 

 

 

Religious Tolerance and Freedom of Speech

Apropos of a Sikh mob in the UK forcing an  "offensive" play to close, writer Lionel Shriver excoriates those who claim that religious tolerance requires suppression of "offensive" speech:

Freedom of speech that does not embrace the right to offend is a farce. ***

The concept of religious "tolerance" seems to be warping apace these days, and we appear to forget that commonly one tolerates through gritted teeth. It is rapidly becoming accepted social cant that to "tolerate" other people's religions is to accord them respect. In fact, respect for one's beliefs is gradually achieving the status of a hallowed "human right."

I am under no obligation to respect your beliefs. Respect is earned; it is not an entitlement. I may regard creationists as plain wrong, which would make holding their beliefs in high regard nonsensical. In kind, if I proclaim on a street corner that a certain Japanese beetle in my back garden is the new Messiah, you are also within your rights to ridicule me as a fruitcake. ***

... Britain's Channel Four has promoted its "Shameless Christmas Special" with billboards parodying "The Last Supper," in which Jesus, if you'll pardon the expression, is drunk as a lord. Some Christians find the ads in poor taste. I may admire the campaign as droll; the pious may pontificate about how much they deplore it. Now, that is free speech.

Read it all.

Rowan's a Godsend -- A. N. Wilson

That splendid British writer A N Wilson, author of provocative books about Jesus and the apostle Paul among others, has this essay about Archbishop Rowan Williams in The Spectator (via Thinking Anglicans).  Here's an excerpt:

... As well as the evangelicals, the usual suspects among right-wing journalists now line up to denounce him — Peter Hitchens, the Revd Peter Mullen and so on — because of his supposed weakness on such subjects as Hell, Islam and other matters.

Yet my faith in him is undimmed, and my admiration has grown in the last year. The crowning glory for me was a trivial matter. The Today programme on Radio Four offered him a ‘prime slot’ to do ‘Thought for the Day’ on Christmas Eve and his office replied that the Archbishop would be offering his thoughts on the Nativity of his Saviour from the pulpit of Canterbury cathedral.

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Questions Being Debated at The Salty Vicar

I'm a little late in noting this, but on Saturday The Salty Vicar posed a series of Questions for Reasserters [i.e., traditionalists] that touched off a slew of interesting comments.  Some excerpts:

I have a few questions for reasserters that would help me understand their position.  If any of you feel like trying to answering them, please do so - also on your own blog, if you have one. 

*  *  *

How do you determine the criteria for interpreting scripture allegorically or literally?

*  *  *

How you might convince a non-religious person, without using religious language, that the Bible is reliable?  How is it reliable? 

*  *  *

DeChristianizing Christmas: Charles Krauthammer Weighs In

From Charles Krauthammer's Washington Post column of yesterday, a meditation on those folks who want to deChristianize Christmas (hat tip to ProfessorBainbridge). 

Dr. Krauthammer attributes the effort to people who are insecure in their own religiosity, or lack thereof:

It is the more deracinated members of religious minorities, brought up largely ignorant of their own traditions, whose religious identity is so tenuous that they feel the need to be constantly on guard against displays of other religions -- and who think the solution to their predicament is to prevent the other guy from displaying his religion, rather than learning a bit about their own.

*  *  *

Christmas Decorations in Two Stages?

My family is going to try a Christmas-decoration suggestion from Anglicans Online, apropos of preserving the distinction between Advent and Christmas:

This week we find ourselves thinking about Advent and the secularisation of Christmas, and about an idea for recovering Advent from the commercial onslaught of this season.  *  *  *

We are mulling over several ideas for symbolic Advent acts this year.

Canon Wyatt Defends Same-Sex Unions

Read this excerpt from a defense of same-sex unions by the Rev. Canon Michael Wyatt of the Washington National Cathedral.  (Hat tip to TitusOneNine.)  His arguments are eloquently stated, and their policy justifications are not implausible. 

On the merits, I'm still on the fence about committed same-sex unions.  I don't think we know enough about their long-term sociological effects.  (I don't buy the conservatives' argument that the question is settled solely by the Scriptural prohibitions against homosexuality.) 

That's why I'm glad the Episcopal Church has in essence adopted a diocesan-option policy about blessing same-sex unions.  Just as the 50 states are laboratories of democracy (in Justice Brandeis' phrase), the different dioceses can serve as laboratories of the church.

Should Women Be Priests?

If you want to see otherwise-sensible people vehemently arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, read this discussion on the TitusOneNine blog about whether women can be priests. 

Not, should women be priests; no, they're arguing about whether women can be priests as a matter of ontology. 

Some of the 170 arguments and comments (so far) are truly ... interesting.  One of my favorites is # 106: 

No, no, no. Tacos and coke most certainly can NOT be used in the Eucharist, if you want it to work. ...  [Comment by gwb — 12/2/2004 @ 11:21 am]

Sex, Spirituality, and Blasphemy

Karen Haluza at Raw Faith has this thought-provoking comment about sexuality, spirituality, and the new movie about Dr. Alfred Kinsey.  She doesn't seem to be a prude by any means, but she argues that sex divorced from its spiritual aspect can be tantamount to blasphemy:

... To my way of thinking, the primary function of sex is to be a way to draw closer to God through the intimate union with another created being.  It's a way to go back to the garden, back to paradise.  It is a sacramental act and, when it is divorced from this context, it has the potential to become a blasphemous act. 

Here's a story that is a related example. I once attended a New Year's Eve dinner.  One of the guests, a colorful Catholic woman, had brought along a large communion wafer.  She insisted that we each pass it around and break off little pieces to eat "for luck." My devout Catholic mother-in-law was horrified. This is the sacrament of communion devoid of its spiritual context.  It is a blasphemous act. 

Read the rest of it.

David Brooks on John Stott

Today's NY Times has a respectful op-ed piece today about evangelical leader John Stott, by columnist David Brooks.   (Hat tip to TitusOneNine)